Tina Turner
(written by Mark Knopfler)
The deal to sell 12.5pc of the All Blacks to Silver Lake partners for NZ$387.5m (€230m) was signed off last week in New Zealand. Silver Lake are a private equity company, or asset strippers to you and me.
The company has said it will stay on for between seven and 10 years and then head off into the sunset. Most of these companies look for an IRR (internal rate of return) well into double digits on this sort of project before flipping them.
If the New Zealand Rugby Union had retained earnings and cash instruments of around NZ$70m built up on their balance sheet since as far back as 1884, how on earth are they going to pay back NZ$387.5m in seven to 10 years with a significant coupon on top?
The initial investment values the All Black brand at NZ$2.8bn, and only these private equity companies could come up with a value like that. The All Blacks will be told when and where to play and the private equity company will control their private dancers and sweat their assets until the pips squeak.
I laughed when I heard that the Kiwis planned to invest some of their windfall in the amateur game and grassroots rugby. It’s a laudable and noble aspiration, but the sale of the All Blacks brand will only create a bigger gap between rugby for fun and rugby for profit.
The All Blacks will be performing tricks in Europe until they are numb with exhaustion. As the song goes: “You keep your mind on the money — keeping your eyes on the wall.”
What effect will it have on the inexhaustible supply of quality players New Zealand keep churning out? Will there be more exports to Europe or fewer?
The NZRU are always cribbing that their best players head to Europe and this has a detrimental effect on their playing stocks. But we all know that when a one-cap All Black arrives here it means he has been told his career is over, so let the fools in the northern hemisphere pay top dollar.
The NZRU have significant financial muscle now and they will be in a position to retain whoever they want. They will also have a bigger national squad — anyone who goes is past it or not good enough. The bad news is that the Kiwis will probably get better but their players will pay a high price for it.
For those who go, there is still a worthwhile reward. The Heineken Cup semi-final today has nine private dancers lining out in La Rochelle colours — four Kiwis, three Saffers, one Aussie and one Fijian. Take them out and you have a pretty ordinary side.
The Kiwis are an interesting bunch and their performances today will go a long way towards determining the outcome of this game. How they got there is almost as interesting as what they do today.
Ihaia West gets in ahead of Jules Plisson the former Stade Francais player. I have not heard West’s name in quite a while. When the Auckland Blues beat the British and Irish lions 22-16 in June 2017 it was West who scored a sensational try with about five minutes left and then knocked over the conversion to leave Wazza in a tizzy. The Blues were not supposed to win that one and it could have scuppered the tour, but the Lions showed admirable resilience to recover a number of times on that tour.
Surely the kid who did the damage was on the way to becoming an All Black? That pace can do all kinds of damage, who could match that sort of electric glide?
Well Beauden Barrett and Richie Mo’unga could and more and so after a few games for the Maori All Blacks, West headed off for the Nelson Eddys in La Rochelle. He still has phenomenal pace and maybe this is a sign of what La Rochelle intend to do today.
Plisson is a far better game manager and his kicking game is ahead of West’s, but the Kiwi has great hands and he can cause all sorts of panic with that little stutter step and go. Ross Byrne doesn’t have to tackle too many huge forwards, all he has to do is to make sure West does not step inside him.
West also has a habit of turning up in outside channels where he gives assistance to Brice Dulin and Raymond Rhule. He is a dangerous and underrated player who can cause all sorts of damage to Leinster.
I played in teams coached by Mick Doyle and to this day I am still unable to understand what it was that ‘give it a lash’ meant. He never came up to me in the dressing room and said, “give it a lash there Frano”.
The new ‘give it a lash’ idiom is KBA — keep ball alive. I marvel at its ingenuity. Of course you keep the ball alive, just how do you do it? You can do it against sides like Sale, who don’t have the pressure game and the ability to close sides down. Freewheel and Premiership sides will eventually fold.
Leinster are a different class of side and they know how to apply pressure to the right personnel and more importantly the right person. If you were to try and pin somebody down in the La Rochelle ranks it would be their scrumhalf and the guy who lubricates their KBA style of play — Tawera Kerr-Barlow.
Yes his name does sound like a disease livestock get, but his performances at the 2015 Rugby World Cup suggested he would add to his 29 All Black caps. In 2017, however, he jumped ship for La Rochelle for big money.
The jump in quality in La Rochelle’s roster meant that they became a little bit more than perennial survival candidates. They became contenders and yet they only got so far.
Quite often when the heat came on a player like Kerr-Barlow, who was used to having silver service from the Kiwi pack, he neither looked nor played as well as he had. La Rochelle have never won anything and if they are to make a mark then a Travelling Wilbury like Kerr-Barlow will have to produce a superlative performance.
The other Kiwi of note is Victor Vito. He’s a proper All Black with 33 caps, but you always felt it should have been 93 given his extravagant talents. He is the lynchpin of a very talented back row with Gregory Alldritt and Wiaan Liebenberg. They have the horsepower and the experience to trouble Leinster.
It’s hard to know how long most of La Rochelle’s forwards can keep up with the anticipated pace, because most of them are into their 30s and they do like a setpiece-to-setpiece type of existence.
At 34, Vito is a dynamic ball carrier and a skilful player. He is the fulcrum from which La Rochelle get most of their go-forward ball. However, they struggle badly against sides that can match them up front and have backs to match.
La Rochelle may be second in the Top 14, but they always seem to run out of momentum at the business end of the season and they still struggle to beat the better sides like Toulouse, Racing and Clermont and their wins this season are mostly against the bottom half dross in the Top 14.
It becomes clear what sort of side you are when you are under pressure. La Rochelle look great when they are dishing it out, but not so good when on the receiving end. Leinster, on the other hand, are able to consistently absorb tremendous pressure. They have this great ability to roll into a ball and bounce teams out of the way when they are under the cosh.
There are an awful lot of 30-somethings in that La Rochelle pack and the question has to be asked: how fit are they? They will undoubtedly start well and their pack will apply pressure in the first half an hour, but can they sustain it against a rhythm-based team in blue who can go for the full 80 and more?
Leinster have a voracious appetite for matches of this sort and have manoeuvred their way out of tough away games against Montpellier and Lyon in recent times. La Rochelle are a classier outfit than the aforementioned, but mentally do they have the cohones when it really matters in a match of such consequence?
We know the La Rochelle coaching ticket are competitive and driven spirits, but the trick, as it always is with French sides full of private dancers, is to convey the coaches’ personalities directly to the mindset of that team. It may happen sometime, but not this time.
